Planes, trains and automobiles

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Well, as you can see from my location I have arrived in Africa safe and sound. Before I go onto tell you all about my day in Nairobi I thought I'd mention a little bit about the journey itself.

After my last blog I headed to the gate for my flight. Here I met a very interesting Kenyan Doctor who I struck up a conversation with as I noticed he was wearing a badge supporting Barrack Obama for President. We had a good old chat and as we got on the plane realised we were seated near to each other. After talking a bit more, an American man who was sat in front of me proceeded to talk very loudly about why he would never vote for Obama. Namely because he was Muslim, the US are bombing them and he is 'one of them'. It took all of my strength not to then engage in a long debate with him and luckily we were interupted by one of the flight attendants who had come along to show my new Kenyan doctor friend to Business Class as he wanted to pay for the upgrade.


As I was left there, wishing I was a Kenyan doctor I found myself surrounded by Kenyans (surprise surprise), Americans, Canadians, Dutch etc etc. Best of all, it looked like I would have the whole 4 row seat all to myself!!! Not having been on a long flight before I was also very easily pleased by the balnket, flight socks, eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste provided by BA at no extra charge (although i will have paid for these already in the ticket I suppose). Looking through the entertainment I decided on watching 'Out of Africa' to get me more excited, and 'Pride and Prejudice' to see whether I had been right to avoid watching the film so far. The first did it's job, the second confirmed I had been right.

The flight was fairly uneventful, I was SO comfortable in my 4 seats and before I knew it we were in Kenya and I was setting my watch forward by two hours. Next stop - immigration!! It should cost $20 for a transit visa. This is a visa for up to 7 days, in place for people who are just passing through, therefore for people just like me. I presented my form and my $20 to meet a blank stare. The very sterm immigration official asked me when I would be leaving Kenya. I explained I would be leaving in just one days time and presented all the information he needed. He then asked me where I was staying. Upon hearing that I was to stay in a hotel for 2 nights he was adamant I was therefore a tourist and should pay $50 for a tourist visa. I refused. The blank stare returned. Once again he asked me for $50. I refused and asked him why such a visa existed. If people could stay for up to 7 days did he expect us to sleep on the streets? He looked a little stumped at this. A staring contest ensued (the first one I have ever won by the way) and suddenly he looked up, broad grin across his face whilst he processed by $20 transit visa. Odd man! On reflection it perhaps wasn't such a good idea to argue with an immigration official but It was 10pm, I was tired and cranky and wasn't about to get fleeced on the first thing I ever paid for in Africa.

I found two other girls in the baggage hall who looked like they may be on my trip and sure enough they were. It turned out they would stay at the same hotel too and that we were in the same car for our transfer. Our driver greeted us in arrivals with a hastily made sign with our names on it. Seeing us head over to him he smiled with a broad grin and offering us his hand to shake told us he was called Francis, would be taking us to our hotel and finally a warm 'Welcome to Kenya'. All thoughts of the moody immigration official now behind me we headed for the car.

A few thoughts ....... Nairobi at night is dark, very dark for a city. There is hardly anyone on the streets other than the odd group of young men hanging about doing who knows what. Kenyan drivers appear to be insane. The roads generally have no markings to determine where one lane ends and another starts. Roundabouts do not seem to have any 'give way' rules. On noting all of the above to Francis he let out a little chuckle and said that at roundabouts you need to look both ways. Francis is seems prefers the approach of putting his foot to the floor when getting to a roundabout and hoping that other drivers know not to mess with him!

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Comments

[Jon]

Great start
Hey there, great start to the blog hon. I'm very jealous as it sounds fantastic. Good luck for the next leg!

[Bex]

Pride and Prejudice!
Yvonne, i could have told you not to watch that!! Keira Knightley just ruins it and Mr Darcy just isn't the same!! Glad your trip is going well so far - i'm disapointed you didn't tongue a giraffe though!!